We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Richard Rodriguez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Richard below.
Richard, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
I was living my life where everything was the same, everything was safe, everything was easy and most importantly I wasn’t failing. I was working as an Architect for multi-million dollar custom homes. A number of years earlier I had been awarded an art scholarship at a prestigious art school in my area. Painting has been my passion since I was young. Each night after work, I’d paint in my small studio shed for several hours. The year before, I’d started displaying my work in a few national shows and received a number of awards and opportunities to continue exhibiting. Although I was selling my paintings, the financial gain was less than I was currently earning. Several years passed, it couldn’t have been any clearer, I loved painting and creating art more than anything else. All I could think of was spending more time honing my skills as a painter. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing what was around the corner for me as an artist. I had to leave the Architecture firm in order to give myself fully to my art. As a full-time painter, I’ve had a number of good years as well as bad. The pieces I’ve created, people I’ve met, cities I’ve visited and the lives that have been touched by my work would never have taken place had I not taken the risk of becoming a professional painter.
Richard, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I revel in the fleeting beauty of the overlooked that delivers unexpected grace to the everyday. I’m an architect turned artist.
I use vertical lines, some bold, some faint, to create meaningful moments in my quietly contemplative paintings. The lines have no beginning or end. They draw attention to the ordinary and provoke a different relationship with the composition. They have no boundaries. Using oil paints to explore both the cultural and physical aspects of my region to articulate a form of self-understanding in the face of cultural and economic expansion. I seek to embody and convey the contemporary western landscape and the features that characterize this region. The pieces I create spark memories of place and time. For each of us, the vision is personal. But the record of visual memories binds us together within this locale.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Continuing to create work that inspires. Always pushing for greater skill, confidence and creativity. Having the primary goal of differentiating my work from everyone else’s.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
I was given the “emerging artist” award in my first national juried show. I didn’t have the necessary displays to show my work nor the budget to buy the one’s I would’ve preferred to use. So, I bought display grids from an artist neighbor for $100, my tent from craigslist for $250, and put everything into my wife’s Rav4. It was stacked to the top! We headed up to the show with trepidation. The show was my first big success, selling eight paintings and the start of relationships to many of my best collectors.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rmrstudio.net
- Instagram: @richardrodriguezartist
